Foundations of Liberal Arts, or "The State of America"

At Transy, all first-year students are required to take a class that we lovingly call FLA: Foundations of Liberal Arts. Most people are afraid of FLA because it involves reading, writing, and discussion. Generally, they're afraid of the writing part. But it's not so bad. Just between you and me, I really kind of enjoy FLA.

Most of the papers you'll write will be "informals" - two page stream-of-consciousness ramblings about a particular topic, article, or person you've been discussing. Often, informal writings can serve as good brainstorm-ers for longer "formals."

For example, most of the works that my FLA class has read have involved feminism and education themes. Our most recent informal paper asked us to express something specific we'd like to see changed about America, in light of these topics. Here's the essay that resulted:

The State of America

Although Caroline Bird doesn’t think college is worthwhile, I do. If I could enact any dream, I would give everyone the ability to think. This kind of thinking goes beyond simple stimulus and response. It is true analysis followed by intellectual discourse in the style of Plato. If college can inspire a little mental discomfort for students, then it can help to stretch their brains.

In order to turn our whole populace into thinkers – or at least to maximize the potential of any given individual – we must first change the public education system. But let’s cut the Miss America crap, so that I can get down to my points. The sad fact of it is that not every child in the kindergarten class is a thinker, but we mustn’t lead them to think that they’re not valued. Likewise, we can’t delude the children into thinking that they can be whatever they want when they grow up. I realize that this is harsh, but maybe it’s what Bird was trying to get at. It would be ideal if all of us could be deep philosophers, but that’s not the case.

At the risk of sounding communist, maybe China isn’t so wrong in prematurely segregating 6^th grade children into vocational and pre-college programs. In studies ranking nations by public education quality, those “inhumane” Chinese educators score higher than our own teachers… in every subject area. Even America’s medical schools and engineering programs love to admit the products of China’s public education system. Our job market is globalized, too. If America’s youth want to be able to keep pace with their foreign classmates, they need to be able to see the big picture.

America’s young people should dare to dream the dream, so long as that dream is specific, attainable, and realistic. The problem with this admittedly elitist ideology is that it would never be accepted in America: the land of economic opportunity. Telling someone, especially a child, that their dream is invalid would be sacrificing their individual freedom. Such a vision of the world is entirely too Horatio Alger-esque (“rags to riches”) to be worth anything more than Disney’s fantasized depictions of love. In a way, the fact that America deludes and will always continue to delude its children is as naïve as my wishing that everyone become a great thinker.

Thus, children in Western Civilization will forever be born into Plato’s allegorical cave, their eyes forever shielded from reality’s light. When they enter the proverbial “real world” to find their dreams shattered, it will already be too late. They’ll have wasted an entire lifetime on a useless public education.

Perhaps by attending college, I am fulfilling the stereotype that I so despise. Maybe I am meant to be a homemaker, not a scholar. Tannen and Gorelick would beg to differ, but often I feel housework to be my true calling. Such is my internal conflict.